The Organ Transplant Breakthrough Collaborative is a Health Resources and Services Administrations (HRSA) - sponsored initiative. The goal is to increase the number of organs transplanted from each donor.

As an organization, ASHI has recently been asked to join the leadership of the Collaborative as a member of the Leadership Coordinating Council. The Collaborative recently sent news of ASHI’s participation and the willingness of labs to join forces with local OPOs that are organizing donor service area (DSA) teams.

In addition, ASHI has formed “Team ASHI” which is composed of all ASHI labs that are working with their local teams. Our motto is “we are here to help.” ASHI will identify initiatives focused initially on effective HLA antibody specificity identification. However, local DSA teams are encouraged to identify their own initiatives based upon regional goals and needs. For example, team D.A.T.A. Northwest has two initiatives to decrease cold ischemia time: reducing the need for fresh samples for final crossmatch and completing kidney allocation prior to organ recovery.

As a result of the message sent by the collaborative, your OPO may contact you to join a local team. If not, you are encouraged to contact them to find out what projects are ongoing in your DSA to see where you fit in and to propose trial projects that the labs can work on.

The collaborative works virtually with active participation in a listserve and conference calls. You can sign up at www.organdonationnow.org. There are also learning sessions where teams share progress and best practices. The next one, LSII, is coming up February 21-23 in Los Angeles. Team ASHI will present an educational program for clinical and laboratory attendees on antibody specificity analysis. Other breakout sessions will include training on the Improvement Process which has been developed by the Collaborative. Come if you can! When the LSII program is finalized ASHI will distribute more information such as schedule, meeting location, etc.

If you have questions contact Sandy Rosen-Bronson (Bronson@gunet.georgetown.edu), Karen Nelson (knelson@psbc.org), Harriet Noreen (hnoreen1@fairview.org) and give contact info.

Stay tuned for more information about Team ASHI!!